by Sarina Bowen
But she wasn’t quite as sure as he was that they were embarking on a forever-night-stand. She’d used the word “forever” with Leo before, and life had gotten in the way. She wasn’t that naive anymore. There weren’t any promises that couldn’t be broken, even by people as wonderful as Leo.
She uncapped two beers and brought them to the living room. “The Brooklyn Brewery, huh?” she asked, handing one over.
“When in Rome,” he said, patting the sofa cushion next to him.
Georgia started the movie again, hip to hip with Leo. After they finished their beers, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her back to his chest. As the film progressed, he spread one big hand across her stomach. His fingers began to gently caress her ribcage. The light touch made her shiver.
Those naughty fingertips continued their ministrations, and then his thumb traced the swell of each breast. Georgia began to tingle everywhere. It wasn’t long before she lost track of the film, her attention focused entirely on his touch, until her breasts felt heavy and overly sensitive in the confines of her bra.
But Leo’s attention was on the screen, and he continued to laugh in all the right places, even as his fingers dipped lower. He skimmed the ticklish part of her belly, making her stomach muscles clench. Then his hand slid down between her legs and he just let it rest there, its heat seeping through the black skirt she’d worn to work today. Waiting.
She forgot to exhale. And when his hand finally retreated, she let out a shaky breath.
“I like this part,” Leo said.
“Wha?” Her eyes swam over to the screen, where Melanie Griffith was at the bar wearing Sigourney Weaver’s dress. Harrison Ford paid her a compliment. And when everyone’s favorite working girl said, “I have a head for business and a bod for sin,” Leo echoed the line into Georgia’s ear.
Check, please. With a whimper, she arched her body back against his, turned her head and kissed his neck. If his plan had been to ease her into the idea of fooling around, it had worked. She turned toward him and slung one knee over his.
“Hey, I’m trying to watch this movie,” Leo complained with a chuckle. But his very hard cock argued otherwise. She ran a hand down his chest and palmed him, rubbing.
He groaned with appreciation, then kissed her. She forgot all about the movie then. Harrison who? There was only Leo and his big arms encircling her. She slanted her head to the side to improve the angle of their kiss and dove right in.
But Leo was in the mood to take his time. His lips slid over hers with sweet deliberation. He tasted her lower lip, then nibbled on it. Then he moved on to her upper lip, teasing and tasting it.
Georgia felt herself growing more impatient by the minute. So she tugged on the hem of his T-shirt, lifting it over his head.
Leo laughed. “Do you always get naked in your living room?”
Only when you’re here. “Becca won’t be home for hours.”
“I see,” he whispered, his voice like smoke. Beneath her, his superhero torso rippled as he lifted his arms to catch her in another kiss. She leaned in, eager for more. But again, he tasted her slowly, like she was a fine wine he was trying to evaluate, when she wished he’d just gulp her down like a Gatorade before an overtime period.
As they kissed, his big hands began to wander her body, his touch reverent. Georgia could work with that. She stroked his pecs and tweaked his nipples, earning a groan for her trouble. Their kisses grew deeper, and she began to float into a lovely place of pure arousal, where nothing mattered but this.
“Gigi?”
“Hmm?”
“Was it easy for you to have sex again after you . . .” He bit the end of the sentence off.
Noooo! her libido complained. That topic would only put her happy, sexy bubble in danger of bursting. Georgia leaned down and kissed him again, ignoring the question. He opened for her immediately, and she accepted the invitation, deepening the kiss. He tasted like the local lager. He tasted like happiness.
But when they came up for air, he pulled his head back and looked at her. “I need to know, Gi. So I don’t do the wrong thing.”
“You won’t.” She went in for another kiss, but he caught her cheek in his palm.
“I love you. And we are going to have so much sex. On, like, every surface of this apartment. But I’m asking for a little guidance, here.”
For a few moments, Georgia just basked in that sentence. I love you. He’d said the thing that she was reluctant to admit. It just popped out of his mouth, the words easy and kind. She’d also enjoyed the so much sex part, too.
She did not, however, want to talk about her attack or her subsequent sexual history. The first thing was a libido killer, and the second was just embarrassing.
With a groan, she put her forehead against his. “I’m asking you not to bring that up. Because talking about it with you is . . .” The only thing I’ll admit to being afraid of. “. . . not fun.”
“I’m sure that’s true.” His thumb swept across her cheek, which felt divine. If only he’d stop talking. “But you never actually told me what happened to you in Florida. There’s a lot I don’t know.”
“In Florida we lost to Tampa.”
“Georgia,” he chided softly. “Please.”
Her temper flared. Her heart stamped its impatient foot and asked, Didn’t I just ask you not to go there? “Please?” she squeaked. “I’ll show you please. Please don’t make me talk about this right now. Why would you want to?” The only reason she and Leo were fooling around again after all these years was because the ugly past had finally faded. Bringing it up again was just going to put them both right back to that unhappy place—holding hands on the sofa in her father’s den, watching sports on TV and feeling sorry for each other.
That’s where true love went to die.
“Baby, it’s necessary,” he whispered, his brown eyes sincere. And sincerely infuriating.
“The hell it is!”
Leo leaned back against the sofa, his brow furrowed. “Look, I really don’t want to fight.” He squeezed his beautiful eyes shut and then opened them again. “I wasn’t asking you to rehash the blow by blow. All I asked was whether it was difficult for you now.”
Well, damn. Point Leo. Though his question was another can of worms. “Did I make it look difficult the other morning in Phoenix?”
His chest bounced with a quick laugh. “No, baby. But you were in control then. See . . .” He tucked her head against his collarbone, lowering his lips to her ear. Then he began to whisper. “I have big plans for you.” His breath tickled her ear. “I need to know if I can strip off your clothes and push you down on the bed and have my way with you. I want to feel you underneath me when I make you come.”
Every nerve in Georgia’s body quivered. “So let’s practice that. I’m free now.”
His hands slid around to her ass and squeezed. “Okay. But you didn’t answer my question.” He grabbed her waist and rolled onto his side, so they were face to face on the sofa. “So help me out here.”
Grrrr. “Leo, you may be a ninja, and that’s hot and everything.” He grinned. “But I’m not a fearful person, and I don’t see why we have to rehash our recent sex lives. I don’t particularly want to hear about yours. And there’s nothing to hear about mine. Absolutely nothing, okay? And thanks for making me say that.”
His brown eyes widened. “You can’t mean . . .”
She banged her head back into the couch cushion and groaned. “So what if I didn’t have sex for six years? It’s probably not even a world record. I wasn’t terrified, okay? It just . . . there wasn’t anyone I wanted to go there with.”
Leo didn’t say anything for a minute. But he lifted her hand and kissed her palm. “I’m sorry to pry.”
“Your inner caveman likes my answer, though.” She gave his ankle a little kick. “Admit it.”
He r
olled over on top of her, his big eyes looking down at her, his gorgeous shoulders in full view. “My inner caveman?”
“Yeah,” she breathed, her tummy quivering at the gorgeous view of his bare, muscular shoulders hovering over her. “Don’t deny that a little part of your fragile male ego is beating on its chest right now.” He gave a snort, and his beautiful eyes crinkled with humor. Maybe she’d only had sex with one man in her life, and some people would consider that pathetic. It wasn’t, though. She knew she’d been spoiled in the best possible way. The man lying on top of her right now was the MVP. No question.
“My inner caveman wants you naked, no matter the circumstances,” he said.
She reached up to touch that gorgeous face. “You say that. But there was a time when all we did was think about the shitty things that happened to me. And—coincidence—we stopped having sex completely. It’s really no wonder I don’t want to go back to that awful time when you didn’t want me.”
Leo’s eyes went wide. “Hang on a minute, missy. There has never been a day when I didn’t want you.”
Georgia dropped her head onto the cushion and sighed. She ought to be glad that Leo remembered it that way. But the sting of rejection still gnawed at her. “We didn’t fool around for months,” she whispered. “I’d try to kiss you, and after a minute you’d turn away.” It had been the worst feeling in the world. And damn if her eyes didn’t grow damp from the awful memory.
Above her, Leo’s brow furrowed. “Well, no kidding. It wasn’t the right time. But not because I didn’t want to.”
“Well I did.” She hated the gruff, unhappy sound of her own voice.
“Georgia,” he gasped. “What did you expect me to do? I wasn’t going to be like, hey, baby, I know you’re freaked out from being violated, but I’m used to gettin’ it regular.”
She turned to hide her face in the world’s ugliest sofa cushion. It had been a mistake to bring this up.
Leo wasn’t going to let it go, though. “Baby, look at me.”
Slowly, she turned around to find him waiting for her with soft eyes. “It was a long time ago,” she said.
“Yes and no.” He leaned down and kissed her on the nose. “Sometimes when I look at you, it feels like five minutes. But I was just a punk-ass kid back then. I didn’t know what to say to you then. I didn’t know how to ask you about this. I wanted so badly to be a man for you. But I had no clue how to do that.”
Crap, now her eyes were leaking. “You were, though. You were so patient with me, and I didn’t appreciate it. I was afraid that you thought I was gross.”
“No,” he crooned, pulling her close. “God, I was so afraid to say the wrong thing. I was just so fucking scared. So I just stuck to you like glue and prayed for it to just get easier.”
“It didn’t, though. And I got so sick of being scared together, and waiting around for things to get better. It was like we spent two months at a funeral.”
With gentle fingers he tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “Is that why you dumped me?”
Was it? “I guess so. I felt ugly and all wrong. You and I weren’t the same anymore. That stung.”
Leo shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too.” She tried to flick her tears away. But they were stubborn.
“I think we could have saved ourselves a lot of pain if we’d talked it through.”
“Because that’s so much fun,” Georgia said with a sniffle.
He chuckled, and she loved hearing it. Laughing is something they hadn’t done that awful spring six years ago. “Let’s never be eighteen again.”
“Deal.” Georgia snuggled closer to him. It was quiet enough to listen to his heartbeat.
“I want you to know that you can tell me the bad stuff, though,” he said eventually. “I don’t scare so easy anymore.”
“Okay.” She was all talked out, though. So she lifted her lips to Leo’s jaw and dropped the gentlest of kisses there. Then she moved up slowly, his stubble teasing her lips. She kissed a path to his ear, nibbling on his earlobe.
Leo purred like a happy cat. He caught her cheek and tugged her into a kiss.
Yes, finally, Georgia inwardly chanted. This. She pulled him down onto her body and tried to put the old disappointments behind her once and for all.
TWENTY-FOUR
Go slow, Leo ordered himself. Georgia had said she was comfortable with this, and he believed her. But now that he’d been given the green light, he was raring to go. They finally had a night together at home—no interruptions. He wanted to make it last.
His girl was done being patient with him, though. Breaking their kiss, she sat up and shed her own top. Then she went for his belt, yanking the end of the strap out of the buckle.
Leo pitched in to help. “You’ll tell me if I do anything you don’t like?”
She put one palm in the center of his chest, and when she looked him in the eye, there was fire there. “I’ve never been afraid of you, and I’m not starting tonight.”
Schwing! He’d always enjoyed getting schooled by Georgia. “Maybe it’s time I got the tour of your bedroom.” He pulled her onto his lap and then stood up.
Startled, Georgia yelped with surprise and then clung to him like a cat. “It’s that one,” she said, pointing.
Whatever. As long as there was a bed. He carried her around the hideous couch and into the dark room beyond.
“Watch out for . . .”
Something collided painfully with his toe. “Oof!”
“. . . My suitcase,” she finished.
Leo nudged the suitcase away and pressed onward. Light reflected from neighboring buildings spilled into her window, illuminating his destination—the bed. He set her down on the edge, and she went immediately to work on his fly. The metallic sound of the zipper made him even harder than he already was. Nobody could ever rile him up like Georgia could. She had always been fearless in bed, and to think that she was so eager to do this after all that had happened made him so fucking happy that he could die.
Soft but determined hands shoved down his jeans and boxers, exposing him to the cool air in the room. Immediately, Georgia grabbed his hips in two hands. Leaning forward, she licked the underside of his cock. “Oh my fucking god,” he panted, wrapping a palm around the back of her head just to ground himself in the dark. She made a soft, happy sound and then engulfed him with her mouth. “Jesus,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s so good the way you take me. First time you ever did that? I knew I was the luckiest guy alive.”
Georgia popped off him with a laugh. “I sure as hell didn’t know what I was doing, then.”
She had known, though. Maybe they didn’t have any technique when they were teenagers, but it hadn’t mattered. She’d cared, and it made all the difference.
Now she slipped a thumb over his sensitive tip, proving she knew exactly what was what. “I remember you were lying on the seat of your truck making noises like the world was ending. Best thing ever.”
Ungggh. It really was.
Before he was ready, she parted her lips and enveloped him again, her hot mouth taking him all the way to the back of her throat. Leo exhaled with pleasure and surprise. Georgia gave a good, hard suck and his hand tightened instinctively on her hair. “You’re killing me. I want all your clothes off, babe. Right now.” Georgia moaned in agreement, and the vibration around his cock made him clench all his muscles in earnest. And when she backed off him, he couldn’t resist giving his hips one delicious pump, and they both groaned.
“Okay,” Georgia whispered finally. She grabbed the waistband of her skirt and fumbled with the button. He tugged it down and tossed it on the floor. There was enough street light coming through her window that he could see the heated gleam in her eye. His girl needed him, and Leo was just the man for the job.
He kicked out of the pants around his ankles a
nd toed off his socks. Then he tapped Georgia’s knee. “I want these gone.”
Her hungry eyes held his while she shimmied out of her tights and panties. Her skin shone pale in the ambient light coming through the window. When she lay back on the bed, the smooth, curving line of her body was broken only by the little black bra she wore. He dropped a hand to her ankle then ran his palm up her shin, giving her knee a squeeze. “You have never looked more beautiful to me than you do right now.”
“Then get over here,” she said, nudging his leg with her toe.
Yes, ma’am. He climbed onto the bed, stretching out beside her, and she rolled to meet him. There was nothing tentative about their kiss. It skipped all the warm-up drills and went straight to a friendly scrimmage. Leo cupped her bare ass with his hand and squeezed. Georgia retaliated by running a hand down his body to cup his balls. When she rolled them gently in her hand, he groaned into her mouth.
Two could play at that game. He rolled onto his back, taking her with him. She dove in for the next kiss, and he spread her legs with his knees. With two hands, he dragged his fingertips tautly down her back. When she made a little whimpering sound he slid a palm over her butt and dropped his hand between her legs.
She was so wet that they both moaned.
“Christ,” he whispered, giving his fingers free rein to touch and tease her. Though trying to torture her had surely backfired, because he was now as hard as a fencepost and so eager that it hurt. His thumb circled slowly, and she began to ride his hand. Her kisses lost focus. She was close. He could feel it.
Leo withdrew his hand, causing Georgia to growl. He kissed the corner of her mouth with a chuckle. “If you’re okay with it, I want to feel you underneath me.”
“Do it,” she panted, sliding off his body, onto her back.
